Winter is over. Right? I hope so, because it led to some real costs for the city — and communities across the state.
A couple examples that we discussed at the April 22 South Milwaukee City Council meeting …
- Water Utility. We had 45 water main breaks between December and March, compared with 22 during the same period last winter. And we had another 15 reports of frozen water lines, compared to none the year before. All in, it’s estimated the winter cost the utility $230,000, compared to $105,000 in 2012-13.
- Street Department. Costs for snow and ice removal have also been significant. We are already running ahead of our snow and ice removal overtime budget for the year, even though we still have November and December to go in 2014. So let’s hope for a mild start to next winter.
Of course, we are not alone here.
And we may be getting some outside help.
South Milwaukee recently joined other communities in making application with the state to obtain federal disaster status. Gov. Scott Walker recently submitted that paperwork to the federal government, so we’ll see if that leads to any funds coming back to South Milwaukee.
Thankfully, there are still eight months left in 2014. We’ll see where this nets out come Dec. 31.
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